Executive of year sees more smartphone magic

by Russ Wiles - Apr. 19, 2012 07:04 PMThe Republic | azcentral.com

Imagine translating Japanese words into English when you pass a handheld screen in front of a Tokyo street sign. Or having your elderly parent's vital signs sent directly to the doctor any time they reach abnormal levels. Or dragging a computer image to your television set with your finger.

Those are a few of the many possibilities for smartphones in the not-too-distant future as envisioned by wireless pioneer Irwin Jacobs.

The electrical-engineering professor, who later co-founded and led tech giant Qualcomm Inc., sees the smartphone revolution continuing as the devices become more sophisticated and more people turn to them.

"It's quite clear that the next decade will bring great strides forward in how we use these great devices we're carrying around," Jacobs, 78, said during a Scottsdale speech in which he also predicted more innovations in how wireless devices connect to home and office computers, televisions, cars, windmills, appliances, dog collars -- just about anything.

Jacobs, the founding chairman and former chief executive officer of Qualcomm, spoke to the Economic Club of Phoenix, where he was honored as the executive of the year by the Dean's Council of 100, a group of prominent executives who advise the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University.

Today's amazing and rapid innovations are a far cry from where the nascent wireless industry stood when Jacobs left academia for industry. He holds a doctorate in electrical engineering and taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California-San Diego before co-founding a firm, Linkabit Corp., in 1968.

That company achieved several early breakthroughs involving the Internet, satellite communications and a primordial mobile-phone system that "required a van to drive around," he said.

Although Jacobs may be most commonly associated with Qualcomm, which counted 22,000 employees when he left, his talk focused on Linkabit. In a remark that economic-development officials couldn't help but notice, Jacobs said the company was the genesis of more than 100 spinoff firms in the San Diego area, including Qualcomm, which he founded in 1985. Looking forward, San Diego appears primed for a new era of growth as its technology and biotech/medical companies collaborate on more products.

Devices that can sense, analyze, record and relay all sorts of health functions will be a major growth area for wireless, said Jacobs, who also sees major changes in education, where students increasingly will be able to receive expanded instruction and even round-the-clock homework help.

"Just about everything we do will be impacted, just about every aspect of our lives," he said in a talk that, somewhat ironically, was distracted by a couple of ringing cellphones.

Dr. Irwin Jacobs

Career: Taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California-San Diego before founding Linkabit Corp. and, in 1985,Qualcomm, where he served as CEO until 2005 and chairman until 2009.

Personal: 78 years old, married with four adult sons, born in Massachusetts, now lives in the San Diego area. As major philanthropists, he and his wife have pledged to give away more than half of their net worth.